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EXPANSION ABROAD
TIANJIN, CHINA - After years of looking for a way into the Chinese DIY market, Leroy Merlin has entered into a joint agreement with Home Way, a privately owned company with three DIY warehouse stores. The French retailer will expand its home channel empire - which now has locations in six countries - into areas of China not yet penetrated by foreign-owned retailers.
China already has a sizeable number of DIY retailers, but most of their activities have been centered in Shanghai and Beijing. Home Way, which is owned by a Chinese conglomerate with interests in 16 companies, has avoided the major cities so far. Home Way opened China's first DIY warehouse in 1996 in Tianjin, located 100 miles outside of Beijing. Two more locations, one in Tianjin and the other in Xi'an, a midsized city in Central China, will give Leroy Merlin access to some of China's untapped markets.
"The new battleground at the moment is Northeast China, and this is where the Home Way is well established and connected," observed James Sinclair of Fiducia Management Consultants, a...